When Gods Are Laughing
by Lerry Hazel
Summary: Once again, be careful what you wish for… (Timetravel&Real!Sai AU)
1. Chapter 1

**Title**: _**"When Gods Laugh"**_

**Genre**: _TimeTravel_AU & Real!Sai_AU; Friendship with a lot of Angst and H/C._

**Summary**: _This is basically the result of the phrase "Kami-sama has a twisted sense of Humor" dropped onto a pile of things about "Hikaru-no Go" that I like, dislike or find confusing._

**Warnings**: _Everything gets so much worse before it gets better._

**Disclaimer**: _No, I do not._

* * *

**WHEN GODS LAUGH**

What do you have there, Nii-san? Oh, I should have known. Why would you want ANOTHER goban?'

'It's a wonderful piece of antique, Heihachi. Which is, according to the shop-assistant, inhabited by a ghost clad in white.

'You didn't believe him, did you?'

'Er – no, of course not. But if the ghost makes a fine kaya board so ridiculously cheap – '

'It is cheap because it is old and ugly. And filthy."

_'Can you see the stains?'_

'Exactly! I suppose they look enough like blood to inspire all those ghost stories. Utterly disgusting!'

_'Can you hear my voice?'_

'Why the – oh, stop that, Nii-san, it's not funny!'

'It wasn't – you heard that too, didn't you?'

'I… heard nothing.'

_'My voice, can you hear it?..'_

'Yeah, neither have I.'

And then there was darkness.

* * *

Kami-sama has a twisted sense of humor: just ask Fujiwara-no Sai, who simply hadn't wanted to die. Well, perhaps it was not exactly what he was thinking (kind of hard to pay attention when five layers of soaked silk are pulling you underwater and cold unforgiving liquid is rushing into you lungs); perhaps, it had been something more like "Shall I truly die now, when there are still so many games to be played?"

And indeed, in the next eight hundred or so years millions of games were played, – just not by him. In fact, whenever he tried to offer an advice, or even praise, the players inevitably ran screaming "Ghost!" So he resigned himself to watching silently.

Then there was Kuwabara Torajiro, who didn't run screaming; who was, in fact, fascinated by the Ghost's unprecedented ability, and – oh, joy! – let him play again. For two wonderful decades the Heian spirit was blissfully, selfishly happy. Then Torajiro fell ill: the spirit stayed by his side to the very end, fully prepared to follow beyond. Instead, a few drops of Torajiro's blood sealed the Ghost's terrestrial existence. Inside a goban. Which, as property of the "Go Saint" Honimbou Shuusaku, ended up in an antique shop. Where no Go was played at all. Ever.

Kami-sama has a twisted sense of humor: just ask Fujiwara-no Sai. Though, he probably won't be able to answer, trapped as he is inside a blood-stained goban hidden in a heavy chest in the farthest corner of Shindo Heihachi's shed.

* * *

Shindo Hikaru collapsed exhaustedly on his futon, leaving the mess of his sixteenth birthday party for some other time. Half a moku. One by one they were overlapping just a bit. Toya Akira. Ko Yeong Ha. Ochi. Isumi. Now even Waya. They were growing. He, on the other hand, felt like he was running in circles, like he had used up that tiny piece of Sai's wisdom he had managed to retain, and there was nothing left to power his progress. Hikaru's respect for Morishita-sensei was profound, yet the truth was Honinbou Shuusaku had been second to no one – save the legendary "sai" of NetGo: "Shuusaku learning modern joseki". Being taught by Sai and then forced to seek tuition elsewhere was akin to tasting the finest tea once only to have to settle for mere water. Sometimes Hikaru wished he could give up Go altogether, to try his hand elsewhere and cherish Sai's memory in all its untouched glory; but he knew he never would. Go was the only real thing he had left from Sai, bar the cheap fans he kept buying in the Association gift shop and a handful of kifus he had managed to coax from his memory. Sometimes Hikaru tried to timidly remind himself Sai had essentially taken over his life, and now he had it back. He always ended up laughing bitterly; apparently, he didn't want "his life back": he wanted Sai's friendship, and Sai's guidance, and the warmth of Sai's cheerful and passionate presence resting comfortingly at the back of his mind.

All it would have taken to keep Sai content was an occasional game. He could have randomly dropped by in one distant Go Salon or another. He could have gone to another Internet café. He could have somehow got a laptop. Damn, even sacrificing all his public games wouldn't have killed him: playing Sai exclusively was an honour some senior dans would have killed for and a brat with barely months of experience shouldn't deserve; yet, like a playground bully, he had robbed Sai of the very reason of his existence – the game he himself would never have discovered if it were not for Sai.

"Oh, kami-sama, why wouldn't you just let me go back," Hikaru sighed, closing his eyes and covering his face with a dog-eared collection of Shuusaku's kifus for a good measure.

And then there was darkness.

* * *

For a moment darkness swallowed Hikaru's vision as he was trying to pry an obviously old (and damn heavy) wooden thing from where it was probably long forgotten buried under loads of his grandfather's other possessions. The boy stumbled and landed gracelessly on his backside; the resulting racket brought Heihachi to the 'crime scene' and he hurriedly led the children away from the haunted goban harbouring a ghost clad in white. And, just in case Hikaru and Akari could also see and get curious about lonely drops of moisture rolling silently along the grid, from then on he made sure to keep the chest – and the shed – locked.

* * *

Shindo Hikaru is twelve and tediously working his way through his first year of secondary school. He is still failing social studies and plays in the school football team. He is mostly the same loud and immature manga-lover and video-games fan. The brief moments when he suddenly grows quieter and ponders over the purposelessness of his existence are attributed to 'that awkward age'.

Kami-sama has a twisted sense of humor, but Shindo Hikaru wouldn't know: he doesn't remember being fourteen, playing Go professionally and meeting Fujiwara-no Sai.


	2. Chapter 2

**_A small update, compliments to_ Niume22**;-).

* * *

Fujiwara-no Sai pounds the hypothetic walls of his prison with his incorporeal fist. The chest where his goban is hidden rattles in response. With a pitiful groan Sai sinks on the metaphorical floor: he doesn't want to become a vengeful ghost, he truly doesn't, but he can just feel his sanity slipping away from him with nothing to occupy his mind but remembering his past games again and again and again. It has been over a century since he last played Go. It has been a millennium since he touched the stones. It has been almost thirty years since he last saw light. Since his goban was locked away he has cried so much Heihachi's house should have been by now flooded up to the rooftop, except the ghost's tears are, apparently, as insubstantial as the rest of him.

'Kami-sama', he whispers, 'I know now a soul can no more live without a body than a body without a soul. Isn't it the lesson you wished me to learn?'

For a moment Fujiwara-no Sai thinks he heard a soft laughter. But the darkness is still there.

* * *

When, on his way home from three days of amateur Go and Okinawa sun, Shindo Heihachi was informed gleefully by his nosy neighbor that some hairy strangely dressed brat had been caught by his house earlier that morning and taken to the nearest police station, he hurried to wave the gossipy hag off. Perhaps, he wouldn't have been so quick to dismiss the situation had he listened long enough to realise that anyone wandering the respectable neighborhood aimlessly wearing a white kariginu, of all things, was extremely likely to end up in the local hospital: the one where Heihachi's sixteen-year-old grandson had been admitted a few days earlier.


	3. Chapter 3

Hikaru's first thought was they had given him a girl as a roommate: and quite a whiny one too, if she had indeed fainted due to what looked like a simple broken wrist.

The girl turned out to be a particularly delicate-looking and extremely long-haired guy called Sai, if an elegantly folded poem in his sleeve was anything to go by. He was probably from Kyoto, if "the capital of peace and quiet that would bring me no more peace" in said poem was to be taken literally, - the guy himself had yet to speak at all. The broken wrist was sustained while fighting off two orderlies who attempted to put him into the shower, though otherwise the 'poor dear' didn't seem violent, just confused and disorientated – and pumped with sedatives up to eyeballs anyway, so no need to worry (as a chatty nurse assured Hikaru, never mind that at that time she was actually fastening the "poor dear's" extremities to the bedframe); in fact, he was supposed to sleep peacefully through the night, but "you wouldn't mind keeping an eye on him for me just in case, would you?"

Hikaru didn't mind. After three full days of bed rest he was so sick of resting he was grateful for any distraction, even though watching someone who was lying in bed looking half-dead wasn't all that entertaining.

* * *

It should have been clear that by 'keeping an eye on him' the nurse probably meant summoning her should anything change (unless she meant it as a joke). Therefore, when in the middle of the night the Sai guy suddenly stirred and soon started to struggle silently against his bounds, the sensible thing to do was to hit the 'Nurse' button and try to stay away from a patient possibly prone to random violent outbursts. But 'Shindo Hikaru' and 'sensible' simply didn't belong in the same sentence most of the time. So instead he hanged over the edge of his own bed as far as his injured leg would let him and hissed "Hey, you awake?"

The guy just continued to tug on the restrains desperately, no doubt aggravating his injury. With a sigh Hikaru threw his blanket aside, hopped across the room and collapsed heavily on his distressed neighbour's bed, switching the bedside lamp on with one hand and not-too-gently shaking the guy's hopefully uninjured shoulder with the other.

The guy jerked away so violently that Hukaru had to hold him down, vaguely realizing that was probably how the broken wrist had been sustained and tempted to leave the mess for someone else to pick. But he couldn't really just walk away, when the guy's body felt painfully stiff under his touch, and the eyes that looked back at him reflected nothing but primal fear; they were also of intense electric blue.

"Hey," Hikaru murmured, relaxing his grip, "it's OK, I won't hurt you. Nurse Ayame says you've got yourself into some kind of trouble that freaked you out of your mind, but that's all over now; they've found you and brought you here and they're gonna patch you up.

"Hey, don't cry, I won't hurt you," he continued, stroking the other's trembling arm absentmindedly. 'Do you even understand me? No? Strange, you don't look foreign; more like alien… You're Sai, right? I'm Hikaru, by the way. Wanna tell me how you got here? I fell off the stairs. Messed up my leg pretty badly. It was kinda weird. Mom won't believe me – she keeps asking whether I had an unauthorized party with too much beer, or spilled something on the floor, or left something lying around, but I really don't think I did. It was like one moment I was heading downstairs to get a glass of water, and then suddenly I wake up here, and they tell me I'll need an operation. It's almost ironic you know? I've been playing football for, like, ten years, and I've never –Well, I guess now I'll have to forget about football for a very long time. Hey, do you even like football? Probably not, with hair like this and all. Bet you like poetry, or maybe art. Actually, poetry isn't all that bad. Mom gave me a book once, when she thought I was getting into all that Heian stuff. It was back when they released that 'Onmyouji' manga. It's kinda lame, with all the demons dropping dead just from listening to some gibberish, but there is something about the ridiculous white cloak the Onmyouji guy himself wears, like I should know it from somewhere, or it should mean something to me, you know? Sounds pretty stupid when you say it aloud, eh? Oh, and you look about ready to go back to sleep. Now, that was easy. I guess they didn't have to come after you with that syringe. I mean, I'd probably freak out too, if those huge guys came to drag me somewhere – OK, I'm shutting up, I know those doctors go on and on how good rest is essential for proper healing, blah-blah-blah. Sleep well, Sai.'


	4. Chapter 4

Mitsuko had always been the kind of girl to believe in doing it yourself in order to have something done properly. Urumi believed in giving a starving person a fishing rod, not a fish. That's why at school Mitsuko usually was the one to actually decorate the assembly hall while the rest of the 'volunteers' sneaked to the arcade, and Urumi ended up tutoring those foolish enough to have asked to copy her homework. So, five years out of school Mitsuko married Shindo Masao, who was almost fifteen years her senior and spent nine months a year on business trips; meanwhile, Urumi was struggling to keep together her rocky relationship with Fujisaki Kintaro, who wasn't too thrilled to have a child while they were both still working their way through med school.

Urumi bought her daughter a dog as soon as she was old enough to hold a leash, while Mitsuko kept insisting her son was too young for a pet; and by the age of twelve Fujisaki Akari could run the household expertly while her mother worked longer and longer hours, while Shindo Mitsuko couldn't even leave for a weekend, convinced that her equally twelve-year-old Hikaru wouldn't be able to handle a pre-cooked dinner.

So, when the hospital intercom called Fujisaki-sensei to report to trauma department urgently, she went fully prepared to deal with her best friend's son and his childish antics; what she didn't expect to find was Hikaru's neighbour, who, to her knowledge, was supposed to be sedated, struggling panicky with restrains, nurse Kaneda shouting for someone to call the psychiatrics, and Hikaru, hopping on his good leg to place himself strategically between the two of them, shouting even louder for the nurse to back off, as anyone would freak out when threatened with a damn huge needle.

Having noticed Fujisaki-sensei, the nurse lunged into a lengthy explanation of how the patient had been unresponsive up to the point where the actual physical contact occurred, upon which he tried to scramble away, clearly unaware of his surroundings, and how the brat wouldn't let her do her job. By the time she was finished the poor man was miraculously untied and sitting up, leaning on Hikaru with all the vulnerability of a lost child desperately trying to convince himself a police officer would indeed take him home; he even allowed – whimpering and hiding his face in Hikaru's neck – to take the blood sample in question.

Dr. Fujisaki Urumi pondered her options, while conducting the routine examination. Of course, there were more tests to be run, but by now she was almost certain that, whatever trauma the patient had sustained, it was too serious for him to snap out of it on his own; on the other hand, choosing Hikaru as his 'protector' could possibly mean he was still at least partly aware of his surroundings; but was it his only link? what if it were broken?

And so, Fujisaki-sensei made a decision. Every rule in the book said she was to take the patient to psychiatric wing and place him under observation, but she would wait, if only for a day. A lot could happen in one day. The patient could miraculously recover, for all she knew. Or his family could come for him. Or he could get worse and transferred to a specialized clinic. Which was a very good reason not to let him get attached to Hikaru, except, apparently, it had already happened; so – The bottom line was, right now her patient would benefit from Hikaru's presence; and, in the long run, learning a little bit of responsibility would also do her best friend's son good.


	5. Chapter 5

Hikaru yawned without bothering to cover his mouth. It wasn't like there was anyone around to reprimand him for lack of manners: Sai clearly wasn't the most sociable guy around. And Hikaru had already read all his latest manga – twice; his mother wouldn't show up with a new one for a few more hours; and it would be useless to try and sneak to the newsstand three floors down by himself with his leg in cast in the middle of the ward round. So he was stuck re-reading the manga for the third time. And he was so bored he was starting to wish someone had brought him an actual book. Now, where did it leave Sai, if he didn't even have a pre-read manga and thus had spent the last thirty minutes staring in space?

"Hey, you want one of these?" From the pile on his bedside table Hikaru selected a comic book he couldn't possibly want to read for the fifth (or was it sixth?) time and threw it over the narrow aisle between two beds. Sai looked startled, but relaxed marginally as Hikaru smiled at him, and got to eye the book curiously without attempting to pick it up.

'Oh, shit! Does the cast bother you? Sorry, didn't think about it. Here,' transferring his death grip from one bed-back to the other Hikaru expertly crossed the tiny room and flipped the magazine open on his neighbour's lap. 'Better?'

The other fascinatedly traced the drawings with his long elegant finger and smiled a heartbreakingly innocent smile.

'You don't get it, do you?' Hikaru interpreted correctly. 'Never mind. I'll show you. You see, the weird guy here, yeah, the one with mile-long hair, kinda like yours, actually, well, the guy is really cool…'

* * *

All in all, Hikaru had had to stay in hospital for over ten days. His mother had been there daily; grandpa had made sure to visit at least twice a week, and, of course, Akari wouldn't miss a chance to pile schoolwork on him. No one ever came to Sai. In fact, Hikaru had taken it upon himself to talk to his neighbour, partly because silence was getting on his own nerves but mostly because few others bothered: after all, in Aunt Urumi's expert opinion, Sai's conscious mind, if he even had one, was buried so deeply only the merest instincts reached the surface. Hikaru secretly disagreed. Most of the time Sai's insanely-blue eyes looked at the world with childlike clueless fascination, but Hikaru could swear he had caught a faint spark of almost-recognition when his mother and Akari had decided to conspire 'for the sake of his schoolwork' and left him with nothing to read but a heavily-annotated edition of Manyoshu. Sai had also proved capable of working through his own daily routine with minimal guidance; in fact; Hikaru didn't even have to introduce him to chopsticks (as opposed to fork) and hair-comb (as opposed to hairbrush); and (since Hikaru had figured out why his notebooks and magazines, as well as random pieces of paper, were constantly grabbed, and charmed a nurse into checking out his neighbour's personal belongings) Sai's fan was being put in use: most elaborately and sophisticatedly, one might add. So, although Hikaru wouldn't argue with the doctors, of course, privately he sometimes suspected that Sai wasn't as much out of it as he was sincerely unaware sandwiches were meant to be eaten, cocoa drunk and pyjamas worn.

Explaining this strange new world to Sai had considerably brightened Hikaru's tedious stay in the hospital, filling every little thing with significance and excitement. He was glad to be at home; but he was also starting to miss Sai: even though in the course of their interaction Hikaru had always been the one to do all the talking, without Sai the room seemed too silent. He was also worried. He had said 'goodbye' to Sai and promised to visit once in a while, but Hikaru did understand Sai wasn't sane: would he notice Hikaru's absence? would he miss him too? would he realise it had been two days? had he already been taken to psychiatrics? would he get a roommate there too? would he be bored if no one bothered to read to him?

Apparently, it had been 'a while'.

With a sigh, Hikaru stuffed a classical-looking book into his backpack and started limping towards the train station.


	6. Chapter 6

Shindo Mitsuko loved her son – but she was also well aware of his atrocious lack of manners and his general disregard of those around him: after all, she had spent sixteen years apologizing to people he had unwittingly (and, later, not so unwittingly) insulted. When she learned the supposed extent of Hikaru's stay in the hospital, she hoped against hope Urumi-chan's limited influence in the trauma department would secure him a one-bed ward; otherwise, she felt sorry for the person who would have to be around her cranky and restless boy twenty-four/seven. When Hikaru ended up being paired with a mental patient, of course, she was concerned; but she also couldn't help feeling a tiny bit relieved that her son's bad mood would only be imposed on someone who was mostly unresponsive and never had visitors.

Mitsuko wasn't really surprised when she once entered the ward to find Hikaru perched on his neighbour's bed explaining something about his ever-present manga; but seeing him grab an orange from said neighbour's lunch tray – not to eat it himself, but to peel and segment it ("What, his wrist IS broken, and he definitely won't ask for help!") – that was unexpected; the fact that upon his discharge Hikaru promised to visit the poor young man was astonishing, and when he claimed to be actually doing so – every day, Mitsuko grew suspicious, although at first she was willing to give her son the benefit of the doubt. But then the day came when Hikaru woke up at 6:30 in order to "stop by in the hospital, 'cause Nurse Hiyoushi only agreed not to cut Sai's hair if I came to comb it myself"; and Mitsuko panicky dialed Urumi-chan's number, fully prepared to confirm that Hikaru hadn't in fact been to the hospital since his discharge. She was, therefore, utterly shocked upon hearing that her brattish, careless son was taking good enough care of his sick "friend" for the hospital to consider offering him a part-time job, "with his parents' approval, naturally".

Mitsuko recited all the necessary 'if it is not too much trouble's before agreeing enthusiastically; there was little hope for her son to actually go in for medicine, but a few month of tedious work might scare him into being more serious about his education.

* * *

Hikaru turned out easy enough to convince, - well, it's not like he had anything better to do with his time. He wouldn't be able to play football for quite some time, and by the time his leg had completely healed it would probably be useless to try to get back on the team – surprisingly, he found he didn't care all that much. Sure, he enjoyed running around the pitch wildly and hanging out with his teammates after practice, but it was clear by now he wasn't exactly a pro material. He was – had been – good, but not exceptionally so. His skills had bought his way to high school, and probably would have got him into some god-forsaken university – but it's not like he had any scholastic ambitions in the first place: he just couldn't think of anything he would rather be doing. So, if eventually he would have to pick up a random trivial job anyway, he could as well do it now: in ten years it would be definitely less embarrassing to admit working in a hospital, rather than in a CD&DVD salon, especially as he didn't even truly enjoy playing video-games anymore; there always was that annoying little voice at the back of his consciousness that kept telling him he was wasting time meant to be spent on something else, something that mattered; too bad the voice never bothered to clarify WHAT it was…

* * *

As it turned out, Hikaru even came to like his job. His badge read just 'Shindo Hikaru', not specifying he was an orderly, not a nurse; and he wasn't the only male on the job either, though the others were all doing it to support themselves through medschools and thus looked down on him. On the other hand, their female counterparts didn't seem to mind. He became sort of collective little brother to the younger female nurses, who all made sure to point out how the scrubs complemented his eyes and gleefully teased him about his 'idiotic enthusiasm'; the elder ones found his grudgingly compassionate way of dealing with the patients adorable, and happily told him about all the truly wicked stuff, like sticking needles into various parts of peoples' anatomy or swaddling up their extremities with rapidly solidifying plaster cast. His duties weren't that different from the chores his mother imposed upon him during her occasional pedagogical sprees, and the salary, while technically meagre, still easily beat the allowance he had been getting (or, based on his grades, not getting) from his parents.

Plus, he got to hang around Sai a lot. Of course, Sai was boring at best times and annoying at most, but still…

Hikaru had always been moderately popular it the way which brought you tons of casual acquaintances but very few real friends; his oldest and the closest one was Akari, but he was perfectly aware that she wouldn't have spared him a second glance, had they not been introduced to each other in the tender age when "putting one's foot into one's mouth" was to be taken literally. And, while it probably was the best evidence of how fucked in the head he was, Sai HAD chosen Hikaru, and kept doing so, despite having reluctantly accepted other nurses' presence as well: that much was evident from how Sai's posture visibly relaxed every time Hikaru entered the room and how he slumped when the boy had to leave for the day, how he cheerfully followed Hikaru around and would let no one else guide him towards any pool of water bigger than a teacup. And, all his exasperated huffing aside, by now Hikaru himself probably wouldn't be able to abandon Sai. When the New Year had come, and the final exams were fast approaching, the Head Nurse casually asked Hikaru when he was going to quit. He, quite sincerely, assured her that he wasn't.


	7. Chapter 7

After her husband's heart had failed him, Toya Akiko had wowed to monitor his stress levels more closely. And she had, but still the day had come when a very pale Toya Koyo stumbled into the living room, haughtily proclaiming 'I am perfectly fine' while trying to shake the supporting hand of visibly irritated and secretly terrified Seiji-san off his elbow. So Akiko had to admit that simply 'watching' on her part wasn't enough.

That's why the very next day Toya-Meijin, the strongest Go-player in the entire Japan, found himself stuck in the most luxurious ward the hospital could provide on such a short notice, "for a thorough check up".

Of course, he would rather have waited a week or two and make a proper appointment, but, apparently, Akiko didn't trust him to stay out of trouble that long, so, by the power she held over everything in their house that was not a goban, he had been ordered to see the doctor before his next official match; hence, spending the next twenty-four hours in the hospital, waiting for all those doctors to stop by and have a look at him as a favour to Akiko's numerous influential relatives.

It had barely been two hours and he was already bored out of his mind, desperately wishing for a decent game, or even a round of NetGo as a poor substitute for one. But Akira was on a school trip, thoroughly experiencing 'a normal childhood' and Ogata was probably still brooding over whether he had, yet again, only managed to beat his sensei due to the latter's aliment; so, since the Meijin didn't feel close enough to Asiwara-kun to bother him for personal reasons, there was no one around to either play him or painstakingly explain the wonders of the Internet yet again.

His cheapest or, rather least expensive goban was currently residing on the floor, and Koyo felt it would be unwise to even attempt picking it up right after having utterly ridiculous amount of blood extracted from his veins by a nurse, who was so tiny and so politely unpleasant that she probably wouldn't have helped him even if she could; as for the young orderly she had summoned to get 'that heavy thing out of her way', he had quickly excused himself to deal with 'Mai-chan's starburst', whatever it was and however long it might take to 'deal with'. The bottom line was, the goban would remain unreachable for the foreseeable future, leaving the Meijin with nothing to occupy his mind but a particularly boring book by his once favourite author and the latest issue of "Go Weekly", for the umpteenth time rather gleefully quoting both Kuwabara-Honimbou's rambling about 'the New Wave' and 'the Meijin's prize student' commenting dismissively on 'the Meijin's son remaining a mystery to the professional world'. Toya Koyo tried hard not to dwell on the incident, for the very same reason he refused to ponder why the angry teenager in torn jeans sixteen-year-old Ogata Seiji used to be agreed to learn Go from him in the first place; or why the new third dan in a posh white suite nearly quit when Akira's remarkable ability started to manifest. Plus, although his lack of proper manners was most unfortunate, Ogata-kun was essentially correct. Age difference aside, while "the Meijin's prized pupil" was shaking his elders' pedestals relentlessly, "the Meijin's son" was happily crashing amateurs, having got used through his early years of training that titleholders went undefeated.

With a sigh Toya Koyo dismissed the persistently reoccurring thought. Of course he wanted his son to follow his steps, but he also understood why the world of professional Go had little to no appeal for Akira, who interacted with its best and brightest every day without literally leaving the house. What his son truly needed was a worthy rival of his own age, who would push Akira to the top from behind. If only –

The Meijin suddenly realised he felt unfamiliar eyes on him, and looked around the room hastily. A long-haired young man was standing in the doorframe, wearing rather ridiculous hospital pyjamas and a plastic bracelet on his wrist to indicate, if memory served, that its owner was receiving long-term and most likely compulsory treatment.

"What are you doing here?" Toya Koyo asked imperiously.

Ignoring the rightful inhabitant of the ward, the young man slipped inside, dropped into a graceful seiza in front of the goban and plunged his slim hand inside the nearest goke.

"Excuse me?" Koyo tried again, more forcefully.

The young man still wouldn't acknowledge him, now frozen mid-motion with a white stone firmly clasped between almost equally white fingers, as if he wasn't quite sure what to do next; something haunting and frightening was swirling in the depth of his inky-coloured eyes.

Toya carefully reached for the button, and moments later the same roach-like nurse strode in. Upon seeing the young men, she pursed her lips, took out her cell phone and after a small pause proceeded to dial the number, apparently having decided not to leave the two alone.

"Shindo," she barked, "what do you think you're doing? Your pet freak is bothering patients – in cardiology, mind you!"

The young man clearly didn't mind being addressed (or, rather, not addressed) as a pet freak. In fact, he was still staring at the stone fixedly with the same cluelessly tormented expression.

The nurse bowed stiffly, mumbling the formal apology she didn't truly mean, and hastily retreated as soon as the door opened to admit the young orderly from before (completed with a mop in his hand and a huge stain smelling strongly of children's cough syrup on his uniform). Toya relaxed marginally: with those bleached bangs and huge green eyes the boy looked fourteen: so, in truth he was probably around Akira's age, but still: the "intruder" couldn't be dangerous if they let a teenager handle him.

The boy – Shindo, was it? – didn't hesitate to place himself between the bed Koyo was occupying and the strange visitor, before gently wrestling the stone from the latter's hand. Then, keeping his own hand firmly on the "intruder's" shoulder (just in case, Toya assumed), the boy turned around and handed the stone to its rightful owner with a deep bow.

"I'm sorry," he sniffed guiltily, looking exactly like a child apologising for his pet's misbehaviour, "We don't usually leave our wing, but cardiology is understaffed today, and he refused to be left behind – '

Well, that much was obvious from how the intruder was leaning into Shindo's touch with the look of sheer adoration in his eyes, where the grayish-violet turmoil had somehow merged into soft velvet-blue.

"I'm sorry if he frightened you," the boy continued with nearly comical expression of the most sincere and profound remorse, "He isn't dangerous, I swear, he just doesn't really know what he's doing. I know I should have watched him more closely, but he doesn't usually wonder off. I guess he got curious. He doesn't like being locked up, and – I'm sorry, of course, I shouldn't bother you with this, just – please, accept our sincerest apologises."

Once again Shindo bowed, and his protégé eagerly followed his example, even though he was clearly oblivious to the turmoil he had caused.

Toya generously allowed his amused parent persona on the surface of his formidable image.

"Well, I suppose none of us likes being locked up," he stated in his best scolding voice that had gotten a bit rusty since Ogata-kun had become too old for a good dressing-down. "Nevertheless, see that this situation is not repeated in the future. Now, as you are already here, would you mind putting my goban back up here?"

The boy obeyed hastily.

"And, by the way," the Meijin added, quirking his eyebrow towards the 'intruder', who was once again staring at the board longingly, "I wouldn't say your friend here is completely unaware of what he is doing. For all it's worth, he knows perfectly well how to hold a Go-stone correctly."


	8. Chapter 8

Shindo Hajime was only forty-eight when he was run over by the only car on an otherwise deserted road. Well, he had been quite caught up in his newspaper, and the driver had been drunk, and it had been years after "that night", so Shindo Heihachi almost managed to convince himself his brother's death had nothing to do with the "ghost clad in white", though he made sure to keep the "cursed" goban well hidden; as it turned out, not well enough to stop his grandson from accidentally finding it.

Heihachi was secretly relieved to hear Hikaru's downright materialistic reasons for snooping around in the shed. Nevertheless, he made a point of keeping an eye on the boy for any signs of "possession". And at first there were none, yet something wouldn't quite leave Heihachi's mind in peace. Hikaru didn't change overnight, didn't develop a burning passion for Go, or anything for the matter. But as time went by it became clear for a watchful eye that something was off. Like someone had created a perfect copy and programmed it to impersonate Hikaru for a day, but the copy didn't know any better and went on playing its role the next day, and the day after that, till the world itself had moved on and the old Hikaru just didn't fit anymore.

He was getting better recently – or so Heihachi had thought, but then the bomb went off: Hikaru asked to borrow a goban.

When confronted, Mitsuko dismissed what she assumed was Heihachi's eagerness for his only grandson to share his hobby with a chuckle, – and went on chatting happily about Hikaru's newly-found friend, finally-accepted responsibility and possible soon-to-be new goal in life. "Something to live for," as she put it. As far as Heihachi was concerned, it sounded too much like someone was taking over his grandson's life – even if a bit more subtly than a ghost would. Upon realizing that Hikaru's "friend" was in fact that very young man that had been found wandering around in white Heian-style attire, Heihachi decided he was not taking any more chances. As soon as the night fell he dragged the "haunted" goban to his backyard and set it on fire.

* * *

It had taken a century or two, but eventually Fujiwara-no Sai's ghostly mind had learned not to reach out for physical sensations. That's why he was having trouble processing the heat. He was hot, really hot – like blood was boiling in his veins, never mind he technically had neither.

By the time the implication had fully sunk in, his prison was falling apart, fire sipping through the cracks.

"Finally," Fujiwara murmured fondly, extending his transparent arm to caress the raging flames. And then everything was gone in a flash of orange.

He pried open his metaphorical eye-lids, which suddenly felt as heavy as true flesh, and met vaguely familiar eyes staring back in hesitant relief and lingering concern.

"Torajiro?" Sai smiled tenderly, too tired to notice the eyes were in fact jade, rather than amber, "this is truly the end then?"

And for the first time in nearly a millennium, his mind finally fell out of awareness.

But then the dreams came.

* * *

Fujiwara-no Sai jerked awake, coughing out phantom water and dust, and immediately what could only be described as a small white elephant rushed towards him, blaring "It's just a nightmare, sweetheart, it's gonna be OK, just breathe!"

'Sweetheart?' Sai nearly choked on what little air his non-existent lungs still contained: what was the monstrous woman thinking? How did she get here, wherever 'here' was? And, wait, breathe?

Sai's terrified mind belatedly registered its desperate need for air. He didn't know how it was possible, but he did need to breathe; and he couldn't: he didn't remember how!..

* * *

Shindo Hikaru was having a very bad day. The night before Sai had collapsed for no apparent reason, and Hikaru had spent the night by his side, helplessly reminding himself there was nothing he could do for his friend that the febrifugal IV couldn't; except the IV didn't seem to help much either.

At dawn the fever broke just as unexpectedly, and Sai woke up looking hopelessly confused but somehow still significantly more alert than ever; Hikaru could swear he actually heard Sai talk. Of course, Aunt Urumi didn't believe him, and made sure to point out – again – that his unwillingness to pursue higher education was not an excuse for skipping school. As if he would be able to concentrate on Koshino-sensei's tedious droning about 'The Pillow Book'. Not only Hikaru had already read it twice, as Sai seemed to favour the witty lady-in-waiting, but someone from the hospital had phoned him, and Hikaru just knew something was wrong, but the old hag had caught him checking out the caller ID and now wouldn't let him leave the class.

Hikaru dashed outside before the bell even finished ringing, reaching out for his once again insistently buzzing phone:

"Aunt Urumi? What's wrong?"

"Hello, Hikaru. I am not interrupting your classes, am I?"

"No, I'm done for today," Hikaru lied hastily. Fujisaki-sensei's stiff tone didn't bode well, and who cares for social studies anyway.

"Please, tell me what exactly happened when Fujiwara-san regained consciousness this morning?"

Now she wanted to know! Hikaru fumed inwardly, but managed a semi-polite answer:

"Not much. He opened his eyes and mumbles something about 'the end'. Probably meant he was feeling better – or still feeling shitty. He went back to sleep almost immediately. I don't think he actually recognized me – called me Tarojiro or something. Why?"

"Well, he had just woken up again. But he had had a panic attack, so we had to sedate him. Nurse Fubuki must have startled him. Perhaps you should be there when he comes round next time."

Half an hour later Hikaru was already attempting to go through with his duties without letting the open door of Sai's room out of his line of sight, while mulling over the nurse's indignant grumbling 'I didn't startle him, thank you very much, he panicked when I reminded him to breathe'.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: 58th year of Showa translates as 1983. When Sai was actually born, there was, obviously, no 'Heian era' yet, but smaller 'eras' of different emperors' reigns, none of which probably lasted 58 years, but let's not be picky. Or we can always put his supposed birthdate in 1 or 2 year of Heisei (1989 or 1990) and move the timeline of the story ten years into the future ;-). **

* * *

Fujiwara-no Sai's mind felt fuzzy, like after the memorable night all those years ago, when one of his older cousins had introduced him to sake. He vaguely remembered his prison's walls succumbing to flames, and then some nonsense about an elephant-like woman and being unable to breathe, which was probably better left forgotten. Right now he felt warm and comfortable, and, even though it made no sense, he could swear there was a sunray dancing on his closed eyelids and a warm hand caressing his hair. If that was what madness felt like, he welcomed it.

"Don't you think it's time to wake up?" a very young voice murmured tenderly; instinctively, Sai wanted to obey the voice, but for some reason his metaphorical body felt not so metaphorical anymore, and damn heavy.

"Come on, Sai." Something shifted beside him, and the hand left his hair to rest more firmly on his forearm. "I'm right here. There is nothing to be afraid of. That's it, just open your eyes."

The world suddenly came into focus and Sai once again found himself looking into huge green eyes framed by peculiar yellow hair that no human being could possibly possess.

"Are you Kami?" Sai blurted, puzzling how weak his voice sounded.

"Oh, so you do talk!" he yellow-haired child beamed and reached out to touch Sai's ghostly forehead with the back of his hand, which after decades of loneliness somehow felt more real than the phantom contacts with Torajiro. "I'm Hikaru, don't you remember? And I hate to disappoint you, Sai, but you are still in the land of the living. Your name is Sai, isn't it?" he added hastily, clearly misinterpreting the spirit's confusion.

Sai nodded automatically, too busy contemplating more urgent matters. When did the child learn his name ? Why wasn't he surprised to see a ghost, but surprised to hear it talk? Was he the one to have destroyed the goban? Was it his discomfort Sai had been feeling? Had he been fighting the intrusion? Why wasn't he anymore? Where does his yellow hair come from, if not from beyond this world? Did the child have gaijin blood in him? If so, does it mean they were currently in Nagasaki, or had the foreigners found their way to Edo again? Or, perhaps, his goban itself had been taken overseas? How many years had passed?

The tide of questions was rising higher and higher, threatening to overwhelm him. So Sai settled for the most pressing one:

"Will you let me play Go?"

The child actually snorted in response:

"Why wouldn't I?"

Sai sent his best pleading look from behind his fan, not daring to voice his heart's desire.

"What? You want to play ME? Now?" the child chuckled. "It's almost dinner time. And I have to warn you I kinda suck. Gramps had tried to teach me, but he gave up before I was even out of primary school. I suspect he sees me as a walking insult to the game. Oh, please, don't look at me like that. If it matters so much to you, of course we can try. I'm just not sure I even remember what to do – "

"I shall teach you. If you permit it," he forced out through the lump in his throat: Kami-sama wouldn't attach him to someone who didn't care for Go, would they?

Hikaru smiled a fond exasperated smile and then rose to fetch what turned out to be a very old and very marred goban.

"It's kinda pathetic," he admitted cheerfully. "Gathering dust in the second-hand shop for ages and all. But still, it somehow seemed more dignified than those cardboard foldable things they had in the bookstore – "

Sai chocked back a sob and hastily covered his face with the fan, as he extended his other hand to brush over the ancient board imagining he could feel the rough wooden texture under his fingers; as if wishing to disprove himself, he rubbed the scratched surface more firmly, but the feeling didn't go away. He frowned and deliberately let his fingers sink thought the wood: the board didn't relent. His fan-clutching hand dropped tiredly by his side and his lips curled into a sad resigned smile.

"What's wrong, Sai, don't you like it?" Hikaru's voice penetrated his consciousness as if from far, far away.

"Of course I like It," Sai answers, hastily turning his eyes upwards. "Thank you, Kami-sama, for this wonderful dream."

"Er, Sai, are you feeling all right?"

"Yes. I – forgot myself for a moment, but that will not happen again. Please, let us play before I have to wake up."

"Sai," a warm hand squeezed his shoulder, while another caught his chin, forcing him to look into those incredibly green eyes, "you are awake. I am as real as you are!"

"Precisely. But it is more that I dared to hope for. When you have to leave, please, convey my sincerest gratitude to whatever deity that has deigned to grant me this wonderful moment."

Panic was rising in the wonderful green eyes:

"I'm not going anywhere, I promise, Sai, just, please, snap out of it".

"It is fine, Hikaru, I am used to it," Sai smiled softly, reaching out to touch a strand of peculiar yellow hair.

"You're scaring me, Sai, let me call someone – "

"No!" Sai nearly screamed, "Don't leave yet! Just one game, please!"

"Ok, Ok, I'm right here," the blissfully warm arm returned, curling around his shoulders. "And you are not dreaming, how can I prove it to you? Oh, damn!" Careful not to break physical contact, he rummaged with his white paper square, which had "Shindo" written on it in fine even kanji, and liberated the metal needle that was apparently used to pin it to his chest.

Then he took Sai's hand and very deliberately drove the sharp point into his finger.

Sai instinctively recoiled and brought the bleeding fingertip to his lips.

"See, you are clearly awake," Hikaru announced smugly. "Told you so. Hey, Sai, what's wrong, did I hit a nerve or something?"

Sai was trembling, suddenly hyper-aware of the pulsing pain in his hand, of the faint taste of blood on his tongue, of his heart booming loudly, his lungs drawing in air laboriously, of the thick scar on his wrist he didn't use to have and, last but not least, of his truly appalling state of undress.

"I am more than awake," he murmured shakily, "I am – alive."

"Of course you are alive, why wouldn't you?"

"Why would I?" Sai retorted humourlessly. "I was dead for nearly thousand years."

* * *

Sai had never been diagnosed properly (partly because of curious inconsistences in his analyses and mostly because the first and the last time they had tried to get his CAT scan he pitched an epic fit, re-breaking his wrist and nearly destroying the expensive piece of machinery). The doctors had agreed that he most likely hadn't been born like this (though there was, of course, a tiny chance that Sai's caretaker had a good reason to let him wander on his own dressed in full Heian-era courtier attire); but, as Aunt Urumi never failed to point out, hiding from a traumatic experience so deep inside one's head was probably permanent anyway.

Hikaru had refused to give up hope that one day Sai might come round; but he had never truly considered the implications: it never occurred to him that, if Sai chose to stop 'hiding in his head', he would have to deal with the 'traumatic experience' in question; it certainly never occurred to him that, even alert and aware, Sai may still be crazy. And now, there Sai was, perfectly lucid, his piercing blue eyes flicking contemplatively over Hikaru's bleached bangs, scrubs and flashy sneakers, over the boring hospital furniture and over the bulky silhouette of the main building outside the window; all the while matter-of-factly reciting the tale of his life and death back in Heian era, as if cataloging his achievements for a job interview.

Hikaru knew next to nothing of mental issues, but the 'Psychiatric Ward' employee in him realised that Sai needed help: as in, shrink, pills and whatever; that he could be messing up Sai's only chance of recovery just by talking to him. On the other hand, as 'the Wing' dealt primarily with depressed businessmen and overworked students, Hikaru's horror-film-induced idea of a 'real nut-house' still included soft white walls, sadistic scientists and men-turned-vegetables strapped to various torture-devices. He wouldn't wish that upon anyone, let alone on Sai, who had trusted Hikaru to keep him safe from unknown dangers, and who was once again handing his entire future to Hikaru, without even realising it.

And Hikaru couldn't let him down.

"Did I get it right," he repeated slowly, touching the would-be-spirit's perfectly cool forehead, just in case, "that not so long ago you used to be a ghost that died like thousand years ago and was locked inside a goban for nearly two centuries?" Sai nodded, staring at him expectantly with those still curious yet also serene and, dare he say, wise eyes. "Well, don't repeat that to anyone. Ever."

* * *

Sai took a deep breath and caressed the small 'plastic' box that felt reassuringly solid under his fingers. It was all real. It was. Not only because he would rather believe in Kami-sama's mercy than in his own madness, but because he could not possibly have imagined all those, well, unimaginable things he had seen and heard that night.

The woman that had come to inquire about his well-being (whom Hikaru called Aunt Urumi, but Sai had been instructed to address as Fujisaki-sensei) had very short hair, no make-up whatsoever and was dressed in a rather thigh gaijin version of hakama. She – quite unceremoniously – bombarded him with questions, and, as per Hikaru's hasty instructions, he replied as shortly as possible that his name was Fujiwara Sai (not Fujiwara-no Sai), that he was born on the second day of the second month of the 58th year of an unspecified era (which, apparently, translated into him being two years older, but that was a good thing, as, according to Hikaru, he needed to be over twenty years of age to be considered an adult, even if he had gone through his genpuku at fifteen), that, no, he didn't think he had any living relatives left, yes, he realised Hikaru was not Torajiro, as Torajiro was dead too, and yes, he knew he was in a hospital (whatever that was), but no, he couldn't quite remember what had happened; the last thing he could remember was, well, playing Go.

The woman gave him an open reassuring smile and sent Hikaru to fetch dinner, which consisted of somewhat sticky rice, a small pile of soggy vegetables and a perfectly square rusty-coloured thing that smelled vaguely of fish; and which Sai, who had had nothing better in nearly a millennium, promptly wolfed down, only pausing to fire out random questions in order to discern how much the world has changed ("What little yellow pieces? These are corn, Sai. They came from a package, of course. Yes, I suppose they were grown somewhere, but I wouldn't know, I get them from a sho – hey, don't rip the teabag. In fact, let me get you some water. What do you mean, that was fast? How much time do you think it takes to heat mug of water? No, not with magic, in a microwave! What's a microwave? Well, it's an electric oven, I suppose. What's electric? You know what, you may as well consider it magic").

For perhaps the hundredth time since the nighfall Sai tapped the smooth surface of the box that Hikaru had left him with a promise to come back in the morning. It lit up brightly for a few moments, and before the soft glow completely went out Sai saw the strange western numbers he barely understood blinked and changed from 01:21 to 01:22. Time didn't stand still in this strange new world, where magic had been mastered by science and was taken for granted; where Edo had become Tokyo, the Emperor had become human and nobility had become history.

The world he didn't know how to live in: he barely remembered how to be a Heian courtier. But somehow he wasn't a slightest bit concerned.

He wasn't locked up anymore. He had an actual body that could bleed, eat and put stones on the board. And, most importantly, he was no longer alone. That was more than enough; more, perhaps, than he deserved.

Despite his weariness of the wobbly construction, which was apparently called "the bed", Sai made sure to kneel properly, before bowing deeply:

"Thank you, Kami-sama. I have truly returned to the land of the living."


	10. Chapter 10

Sai double-checked that the 'mouse's' nose was indeed pointing to where he wanted his stone to go, carefully pushed it's left 'ear' down, reopened his fan with a snap and prepared to wait. And, indeed, it took the whole eleven minutes and thirty-eight seconds, but eventually the weird artificial squeak announced that the black stone finally appeared, filling in the tiny opening he had seemingly accidentally left. Behind his fan Sai smiled contentedly. Of all the people inhabiting the magical box **tAkira** was rapidly becoming one of his favourite. Sai had only played the boy (for, despite the great skill, his stile was that of a boy) once before; it was a few days ago; and today he seemed to have improved already, - not that much, Sai corrected himself with a chuckle, as he ignored the ultimately useless development and casually dropped a stone on the other side of the goban, simultaneously sealing three streaks of black not-so-subtly leaking into the area of white influence: the young lion was too good to show him any mercy – time to go for a kill.

After another ten long minutes of waiting, the magic box indeed announced **tAkira**'s resignation, and Sai bowed, sincerely thanking his opponent for the game, even though Hikaru kept insisting it was useless, as he couldn't be seen anyway. As if to prove him wrong, with a different sort of whine a small window suddenly appeared right in the middle of the goban grid, stating in inhumanly neat letters: _"Seriously? You beat me, and now you beat Toya – twice! Just who are you?"_

The ex-Heian noble couldn't truly read the foreign letters yet, but he made sure to memorise the lines forming his favourite 'nicknames' as he had memorized his kanji when he was still a child. Though, in this particular case it wasn't even necessary: there was only one player who still bothered to try to talk to **sai**, mostly because, having had the misfortune to send his first message when Hikaru was around, he happened to be the only player to ever receive a (shamelessly bragging) answer.

**Zelda** was one of the youngest yet the most skilled inhabitants of the magical box. He (for, whatever Hikaru had to say about a fairy-tale princess, **zelda** was a he) was about the same age as **tAkira** (maybe a bit younger or just less mature) and not quite as talented, but still a very promising player.

In fact, upon their respective first encounters with **sai** they both played like they were confident of their victories. Where **tAkira**'s hands felt paced and balanced, **zelda'**s were messy and explosive, but, nevertheless, both were clearly recreational playing styles, provoking the former Go Ghost into responding with a very veiled and very cruel version of shidougo, seemingly matching them stone by stone and then suddenly gaining astronomical amount of points at the very end, making sure his opponents would replay the game again and again and again, searching for the moment where they had suddenly lost control over the game; and discover they had never had it in the first place.

Judging by the slower, yet still by-the-book unimaginative opening of their second game, **tAkira** hadn't got the hint; more precisely, had convinced himself he had lost because he hadn't been playing seriously enough; thus earning himself a more straightforward trashing. On the other hand, **zelda** had learned the lesson a bit too well. He made sure to play **sai** as often as he could, but their games turned into some bizarre reversed shidougo: **zelda** wasn't even trying to win, instead he just randomly dropped provocative hands (some of which were his own inventions, but others clearly borrowed from at least two more experienced players) and eagerly watched **sai**'s reaction.

Sai's teacher instincts were screaming for him to figuratively – or not so figuratively – beat those carefully polished imperfections out of both boys' styles. He almost wished to once again whisper in the ear of an eight-year-old so that **tAkira** would learn no opponent should be underestimated, as undefeated doesn't equal invincible. He longed to stand in front of **zelda** as he was now, stripped even of the weight of the Fujiwara name he used to carry around, so that **zelda** would see even **sai** was but human and therefore could be outplayed, albeit not easily and not in the nearest future. He longed to instruct them, to watch them grow, to catch the signs of understanding – or confusion – in their eyes across the goban. But he knew it wasn't possible; not while he still tended to collide with people and walk into walls, forgetting he wasn't incorporeal (anymore), and sometimes had to resort to sticking relatively sharp objects into various parts of his body in order to reassure himself he was indeed alive.

* * *

Fujisaki-sensei, as Hikaru put it, was not an idiot. She was quick to figure out Sai had tried to commit suicide; in fact, although it had taken a little longer, eventually she even realised Sai considered himself a ghost. Of course, from her extremely practical no-nonsense point of view, the ghost was, in fact, a slightly autistic offspring of a rich family that had chosen to ignore the fact that their child was a bit too special: a decision that had backfired spectacularly when said child had been somehow left alone with no idea how to function in the real world. Assuming that Torajiro (whom Hikaru, apparently, reminded him of) was a sibling, or, more likely, a servant Sai had had the most interaction with, Fujisaki-sensei pictured an old remote manor demolished by an earthquake or tsunami (or simply invaded by robbers) with no one close enough to notice; and a confused young man, overlooked even by death, kneeling among the ruins, trying helplessly to wake a mutilated corpse, - an event, which, she readily admitted, must have scarred him for life. Nevertheless, now that Sai was actually making an effort to reacquaint himself with the outside world, Fujisaki-sensei was positive he would eventually be able to live a relatively normal life. Secretly, Sai himself was not so sure.

In the thousand years he had been dead, in the hundred and fifty years he had been locked in the goban, in the thirty years he had spent in Heihachi's shed everything had changed so much he couldn't even begin to understand all the wonders of the world he now had to re-enter; half of the time he was more inclined to believe he had been granted admission into the realm of gods. He was willing to try. He was trying. But sometimes it just felt like there was too much to remember.

* * *

In Sai's original lifetime, after he had finished his studies, Go had been pretty much the only thing on his mind: Go, and, perhaps, music. Then it was Go and Torajiro. And then he had nothing but memories, and he treasured every single one of them. But now, everything is suddenly so different: he can't be caught talking to himself aloud anymore; he has to remember to acknowledge people around him, and to talk to them as his equals, not servants; he has to remember not to talk about events from centuries ago as if he witnessed them personally and not to ask questions that might prove awkward; he has to learn how to read European characters, how to use the faucet, how to make his bed and to brush his hair; he has to dress himself and not forget to 'zip' this 'jeans'…

He is still overwhelmingly grateful to whatever deity granted him the chance to enter this miraculous world, but he is also terrified to lose himself in it.

Hikaru helps. By giving him signs when to shut up and by answering all the awkward questions later. By lending him things he needed, which was pretty much everything, up to the barest necessities. By bringing him countless notebooks to write down things he was afraid to forget and by re-teaching him to write once it became apparent he was still using the Heian-style Chinese characters. By giving him the Goban, by playing Go with him and by introducing him to the magic box so that he could play with people outside the hospital. By simply being there, with that blissfully warm hand on his shoulder and the calming voice in his ear.

Human interaction might not be Sai's strongest point, but he understands obligations. Which makes him even more aware that while Hikaru might see helping a patient as his duty, he doesn't have to learn Go for Sai's sake. Or even talk to Sai, for the matter. Surprisingly, Sai finds the latter much more terrifying.


	11. Chapter 11

Toya Akira loved the family Go salon. It was hard not to, as he had spent at least as much time there as at home while growing up, hiding both from other children taunting him about 'playing the old men's game' and the world of professional Go harassing him about joining their ranks. The customers of the salon shared his pure unconditional love for the game and called him 'sensei' since he was eight, acknowledging his skill, not some stupid piece of paper. Of course it also meant they had long since stopped offering him any true challenge, but with the Meijin as his father and the Juudan as his as-good-as-older-brother, Akira wasn't one to complain. In his rare rebellious moments he sometimes thought he would rather have the salon than overtake his father's lonely throne on the top of the Go world.

Yet on days like this Toya wished he had taken that pro exam when he had been first declared good enough for it at the tender age of eleven. Perhaps then he wouldn't be automatically considered the least busy member of the family expected to volunteer to watch over the salon whenever the need arose.

It's not that he was unable to run the salon. He was almost eighteen, he was in fact better at dealing with paperwork then Father was; and, unlike some of father's students, he had no reservations about serving an occasional cup of tea.

It is surprises that he hated, even more so right after his last midterm exam.

So he was completely unprepared to deal with the emergency involving their archive of best games, a can of cherry 'Ponta' and an 'urgent' phone call from their latest temporary desk-girl's boyfriend. And he had absolutely no idea where to get clean kifu-paper at 20:30 on Friday evening. But both father and Ogata-san were absorbed in preparing for their upcoming match, and Ichikawa-san, who had only just brought home not one, but two new-born daughters, was unlikely to appreciate the distraction either. So Akira gritted his teeth, locked the door and dragged himself outside, praying that the big bookstore two blocks away was still open and that they had some Go-related staff there.

* * *

Thankfully, the shop had a huge section for all kinds of table games, from shogi to Monopoly, which was currently empty, except for a rather silly-looking teenager around Akira's own age looming near one of the shelves, wincing at a price of a vaguely familiar book.

Akira spotted a tired shop-assistant, who was taking advantage of a quiet moment by playing a game of Go on her mobile phone, and stopped in front of her, absurdly reluctant to interrupt. The young woman was good, probably good enough to be an insei, but her opponent's latest move had left her in quite a precarious situation. There was, of course, quite an obvious opening at one-three, that would only profit the white in the long run, and after careful consideration Akira had to admit the best solution would be to abandon the cluster all together, except, maybe…

A monstrous oversized blue-and-orange flannel shirt suddenly filled his peripheral vision and a too loud voice barked:

"Just go to one-two and maybe give us a few minutes of your attention?"

The shop-assistant blushed, but quickly put the stone on the grid, hid the phone and turned to the absurdly-dressed teenager expectantly.

"I don't suppose I can only buy one of those," he said sweetly, waving two volumes of what turned out to be '100 Greatest Games'. The first one only has Shuusaku in it."

"That's why they are the greatest," the shop-assistant answered with a fake professional smile, throwing no-so-subtly disapproving glances at the boy's torn jeans, bleached bangs and flashy sneakers.

"That's why I already have them," he hissed, and started to rummage through his acid-yellow backpack with a fluorescent '5' on the front pocket, probably looking for a wallet.

The shop assistant dismissed him with a silent huff and turned to Akira. He used the chance to politely inquire about kifu paper.

"Kifu paper?" the other teenager suddenly screamed, and dived past Akira to where the girl was pointing to, promptly snatching all three kifu pads remaining on the shelf. "Holy shit, do you mean all this time I didn't in fact have to draw the stupid grid myself? Eh, I guess you want one of those?" And, showing one pad into dumbfolded Go prodigy's hands, he collected the other two, along with the '100 Greatest Games', and happily trotted towards the cash desk.

"Stop!" Akira choked out once he got his breathing under control: the time it had taken him to come to his senses and to pay for the remaining kifu-pad had given the guy quite a headstart, and running had never been Akira's strong point. "Wait! I needed those!"

"So do I!" the other teenager grinned. "Tough luck, man!"

"Why would you need kifu paper? Ten minutes ago you didn't even know what it was for!"

"I do know what it is for, I just didn't know it existed!"

"That doesn't even make sense! Anyone who has any idea about Go would have heard – And you did tell her to go to one-two."

"What of it? It was a good move!"

"It was, but how did you figure it out so fast? Even I had to – "

"Well, maybe that's because you are so slow?" the yellow-happy teenager replied cheekily.

"I am not – It is not – wait, did you just guess it?"

"What if I did?"

"What if you did? Go is not your silly joke! It takes years to master! It is complex, and profound, and beautiful! It's not some freaking guessing game!"

"OK, chill. I didn't guess, and you are not slow. A friend just showed me something similar some time ago, and I wasn't good enough to get it then, but now it is much clearer."

"Aha, so you do play GO!"

"What if I do? Wanna play me?"

"Think you are good enough?"

* * *

"Ok, I admit, you're good. Happy now?"

"How long have you been studying Go?"

"Studying? Man, whatever you say, Go is a game. Isn't it supposed to be fun? See you!"

Forest-green eye winked mischievously from under messy yellow bangs, the glass door swished noiselessly and the monstrous blue-and orange shirt vanished into cool autumn night.

* * *

Two moku. Toya Akira eyes a crumpled sheet of kifu paper, filled with messy black and precise red circles with trepidation. Two moku. He technically won, thanks to the unspecified komi, which was probably 5.5, as the guy had demanded an even game. But since when has Toya Akira allowed some punck, who didn't even know what kifu paper was, to gain two moku over him? Is he getting sloppy? Or is he simply not as strong as he has always thought? Perhaps, he should have become a pro long ago. Perhaps, he isn't good enough anymore…

But no. The guy might have been strong, remarkably so, but Akira still won. He was good. And he could always improve, he had the best teachers. He would beat the guy again, properly this time, and would beat him again and again and again, no matter how much harder the guy tried himself. He is Toya Akira, the hope of the Japanese Go World. One day no one would be able to beat him. With a determined smile he tucks the offensive sheet into his one kifu-pad and goes to buy himself a disgusting greasy sandwich as a pretext to ask for the exact address of the tiny café where they ended up playing.

Only after Ogata-san escorts him sourly to the car, demanding to know how exactly he ended up in this particular neighborhood at this time of the night, does Akira realise that he never learned the other boy's name.


	12. Chapter 12

_**A/N**: Once again, thanks for all your wonderful reviews. **Me-Anne**, here comes Ogata for you. And, I'm sorry, but I wasn't planning on any more Waya & other inseis. They'll all probably be awestruck, but I can't see much plot there. Although, if you share your speculations with me, I'll try to write an extra chapter :-)._

_**EXTRA WARNINGS**:_

_1) So far it could be blamed on Sai's 'unique' condition, but in this chapter medical information is just inexcusably inaccurate._

_2) Ogata swears. A lot._

* * *

Ogata Seiji was not a happy man. Damn female drivers. One would think she wanted the accident on her record – so eager she was to call the police. Surely, she didn't expect to put the blame on him – he wasn't even speeding this time. And, seriously, fucking tests? He was fine, damn it, a few cuts and bruises wouldn't kill him; hospitalization might though. Last time it had been all over 'Go Weekly" that Toya Meijin had only lost his title due to health issues: now they would write Ogata-Judan feigned a medical emergency not to defend the title... What the fuck was taking them so long, anyway, how long does it take to study a few scans? He had to get home, he had the match of his life to get ready to, not to mention fish to feed… He also really, really needed a smoke. And he was just too damn tired to deal with all this shit right now…

"Ogata-san, Kobayashi-sensei said you should try to stay awake!"

Seiji reluctantly forced his heavy eyelids open.

"Really? What does he suggest I do instead?" He threw a disgusted look at the severely outdated magazine he had picked up at the reception and blinked a few times, but the tiny lines refused to come into focus – no doubt due to his glasses not surviving the car-crash. "I don't suppose you have a Go-board here somewhere?"

"Actually –" the aggravated nurse he had been not-so-subtly harassing brightened for the first time since his arrival.

"Hey, Miyuki," she chirped into her phone, "have you given Fujiwara his meds yet? Oh, so Shindo is here? When does he come off the shift?" her smile suddenly became rather sadistic. "Yeah, I would appreciate that. Tell him I have a patient here who shouldn't be allowed to sleep for at least an hour. And he demands to play Go."

* * *

Ogata once again rubbed his temples as the fogginess inside his skull was dissolving into steady, dull headache. Uneven white and black shapes were glaring at him accusingly from an old battered goban, as if he was missing something. He had botched the game, but it had been obvious for quite a while now. The guy was good, good enough to hold his shit against a Judan (at least a Judan who had been hit on the head), but that was not the point either: Seiji had long since recognized bright-green eyes, bleached bangs and sporadic playing style from Akira's non-stop twaddle and resolved to leave the questioning for when his skull was not threatening to explode; or better yet, just set Akira on the guy, now he knew Shindo's name and work address. But there was something else in those audacious forms, somewhere in between those blatant chaotic hands there laid a hint of something equally relentless but at the same time more subtle, traditional and, dare he say, wise, almost like…

"**Sai**?" he murmured confusedly. No, there was no way. Shindo was clearly brilliant in his own way, but he also, apparently, didn't even know professional Go existed, and wasn't above making mistakes that only someone who was just starting to discover the true profoundness of Go would make. For this guy to dominate the entire Net-Go community and to win repeatedly against that red-headed 2-dan from Morishita's study group, let alone Akira? Impossible. But still…

"**Sai**. 'The Saint of Net Go'. You lack his elegance and his mastery, but on the basic level your game has '**sai**' written all over it."

" 'The Saint', hm?" Shindo chuckled. "Wait till I tell him that! No, actually, I won't, or he'll be insufferable for weeks.

Ogata suddenly felt all his blood rush to his head:

"Oh, so **sai** does talk to people," he spat venomously. "The entire NetGo community is going crazy about him! Pros have started to frequent the site just to see him play! I've been trying to catch him on-line for month! The Japanese Go world has been forever waiting for another talent of this scale, and he thinks he can just log on for two hours a day, stir things up and run back to – you – you know him! Tell me where he is right now! I want to ask him what the fuck he thinks he is doing! And then – I want to finally play him!"

"If you think I'll let you anywhere near Sai when you are like this, you're sorely mistaking," Shindo answered icily, and Seiji belatedly realised sometime during his rant he had jumped on his feet and now was literally pinning the boy to the wall.

Shit! This hadn't happened for a while.

His fury subdued just as abruptly, leaving him drained and aching all over. He forcibly relaxed his hand currently clenched on the collar of the boy's uniform and swayed dangerously, as if it had been the only thing keeping him upright. Two small hands immediately caught him and steered him gently towards the bed.

"I'm not supposed to diagnose, but you're absolutely nuts," Shindo commented matter-of-factly, rubbing his neck where fabric had cut into it. "On the other hand, I have yet to see a Go-player who isn't. And you're really good, so, who am I kidding, Sai would be ecstatic. You know what, it's kinda late and, no offence, but you don't look so good. And your hour is almost up, anyway, so I'm going to fetch Kobayashi-sensei. He will examine you once again, and you will finally get some sleep. I'll be back tomorrow. And," he added cheekily, before slipping out of the door, "if you behave, I might even bring Sai with me."

* * *

Kobayashi-sensei assured Ogata he would be released tomorrow afternoon, provided there was someone to drive him home and keep an eye on him for the next few days; and Seiji was dreading the Toyas' reaction once they find out. But, he thought as the painkillers kicked in and he finally slipped under covers, if that was what it would take to solve the mystery of **sai**, perhaps, in a way, that was worth it.


	13. Chapter 13

Fujiwara-no Korechika might not have been the most influential man of his time, but he had risen high enough in ranks to marry an actual granddaughter of the current Emperor, even if her mother had been a daughter of a consort, rather than the Empress herself. Sai had been the youngest of his four sons and second youngest of his eleven children; and, as such, brought up in a remote estate among his numerous sisters, waiting for the day when a less fortunate branch of the Fujiwara clan would look into adopting a male heir or when a valuable ally of a lower birth would demand a technically Fujiwara husband for his daughter. Apart from that time when Lord Korechika dinged to stop by at the estate, found out he couldn't exactly tell apart six-year-old Sai and five year-old Michiko and off-handedly ordered his son to be taught swordplay, the boy had had no interaction with his parents, but somehow silks still found their way onto his shoulders and rice into his bowl. Later, when his two oldest sisters were made ladies-in-waiting and left for the Capital, bringing stories of Sai's extraordinary skills with them, his parents deemed it prudent to summon him to court as well. And up to a certain point Sai's career could be considered remarkable, yet his position as the Go instructor didn't last long enough for him to acquire a house of his own and his rank wasn't high enough to be paid in actual money. He had died too young to have any worries but his beloved game, and his ghostly existence had been bearable as long as he could go on playing it. His imprisonment inside the goban had taught him he could do with even less.

And then suddenly he once again had a body that demanded food and shelter, only he couldn't call himself Fujiwara-no Sai anymore, and there probably was no blood of the Emperors left in his newfound veins. He could still play, and he would like to say that it was enough, except he was all too painfully aware that everything he ever owned in this new mortal life, from the decrepit goban by his bedside to the battered cell-phone in his pocket, either used to belong to Hikaru or still technically belonged to him. He only had his court attire to wear to his shinshodan game earlier today because Hikaru had had it dry-cleaned. The soft blue 'jersey' he was currently struggling to pull on, suddenly feeling cold, had been Hikaru's Birthday present to him. The delicate little flute safely hidden in his drawer wasn't Hikaru's only because Hikaru had borrowed it from his grandfather's collection of antiques ("It's not like the old geezer's gonna miss it; he doesn't remember, let alone use most of the stuff he has in that shed!"). As the matter of fact, even Seiji-san had offered to pay for Sai's 'pro-exam' only because Hikaru had introduced them…

Sai had repeated often enough that Go was his life. But up until now he never regarded it as his means of living. He knew detachedly that it was this particular skill that had bought his fourth rank in his original lifetime, or that he had brought Torajiro fame and money; now he could play for himself again and he had no doubt that he would be back on top of the Go world in no time, gaining everything the position implied, including some sort of re-compensation. But money still was a pretty vague concept for him. He owed Seiji-san what seemed to him a truly astronomical sum, which the 'Judan' himself considered "a small price for the glorious future of Japanese Go". And he owned Hikaru so much more than money: yet he would probably never have anything but his love for the game to share in return. Somehow, he didn't think it was enough anymore…

* * *

Aunt Urumi's persistence to reinstall his connection with the outside world left Sai very little personal space, so it wasn't really unusual for him to sometimes feel overwhelmed. Hikaru was a bit surprised to see it happen now, when his friend was about to get some familiarity back into his life, but he knew what to do. So he cautiously approached the former ghost and gently put a hand on his shoulder.

"Sai! Saaaaaai! Is something wrong?"

Sai hastily pasted a smile on his face.

"That's nothing. Thank you for your concern, Hikaru, but I am perfectly fine."

"If you say so," the boy nodded, unconvinced. "Well, how was your game?"

"I lost. By half a moku."

"It that why you look so depressed? I thought you said winning under the reversed-komi-thing would be pointless."

Slowly, Sai's smile started to regain some of its customary warmth:

"Indeed. My victory would have been attributed to the handicap, but losing to a supposed novice would still make Toya-san look bad. When I beat him, I want it to be in a proper match!"

"I bet. You'll be pushing him off his throne in no time, if even half of the praises Ogata-san keeps singing you are true. What, Sai, did I say something wrong?"

Sai's black mood reappeared so suddenly and so forcefully, that he had to turn away bodily, feeling that he was about to start crying in earnest, and hiding behind his fan decorously would do little to hide it. He remembered them all too well from his first lifetime – praises and triumphs and the sensation of battle well-fought singing in his blood. But he also couldn't help remembering the wall of embarrassing awe, envy and cold politeness surrounding him as one of 'the Fujiwaras', His Majesty's personal Go instructor at not-even-twenty years of age…

"Will you leave me when you finally don't have to take care of me anymore?" he sniffed, giving up trying to bite back tears.

Hikaru threw him an incredulous look and – started laughing.

"I wouldn't worry about that while you still can't tell an ATM from a vending machine, Sai. No, seriously, is that what you're tormenting yourself about? Because that's just… I can't believe I have to explain this to you, aren't you supposed to be a genius or something? Listen to me very carefully. The reason I've been hanging out with you is because I wanted to. And I still want to take you to the arcade, and to teach you to ride a bike, and to see your face the first time you set foot on an airplane. I want to be there when you finally reach the Hand of God. Who knows, maybe one day I'll want to be the one to reach it with you! In other words, you're stuck with me, so get used to it. Come here, you idiot!"

He opened his arms, and, gladly obeying some instinct his body seemed to have acquired in his absence, Sai leaned into the embrace and closed his eyes; from the depth of his memory one of his mentor's grumpy voice informed him it was highly inappropriate, but Sai didn't care: he had hundreds of years of loneliness to compensate for, and he wasn't about to waste his chance.

* * *

And somewhere beyond this world Kami-sama was chuckling softly while leisurely rearranging the sky for the Tanabata night. Mortals! Always willing to turn the world upside-down in search of their soul-mates; when all they have to do is wait for the right time.

**=END=**

* * *

**A/N**: _I would have liked to say I made you wait for a week in order to prepare some truly mind-blowing plot twist, but, unfortunately, it was all about tedious obligations I'd been successfully avoiding for months suddenly lining up screaming 'now or never!'. And what you get here, as you can see, is nothing but the final chapter. Well, your reviews have actually convinced me that the story needs some "background characters play Sai face-to-face" scenes, but I still can't think of anything that might happen besides them all betting awestruck. Nevertheless, if someone shares a good idea, I'll try really hard to do it (I have to warn you though, I write really slowly)._

_Also, I know Tanabata is nowhere near the shinshodan games (Kami-sama is taking his time?), and if by mentioning it I implied anything at all, it was the 'once a year' part, not the 'love story' part. Mostly it's there because I was obsessed with a song of the same name while doing an early draft of this chapter._

_Once again, my thanks to everyone who read, reviewed and favourited. _

_Bye! _


End file.
